Esoteric Encyclopedia Entry of the Week: Cloudbuster

A cloudbuster (or cloud buster) is a device designed by Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, which Reich said could produce rain by manipulating what he called “orgone energy” present in the atmosphere.2 The cloudbuster was intended to be used in a way similar to a lightning rod: focusing it on a location in the sky and grounding it in some material that was presumed to absorb orgone—such as a body of water—would draw the orgone energy out of the atmosphere, causing the formation of clouds and rain. Reich conducted dozens of experiments with the cloudbuster, calling the research “Cosmic Orgone Engineering.”2